Daniel Carroll v. Horizon Bank

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Argued December 14, 2022
Decided January 30, 2023
Before
DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge
MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
No. 22-1479
DANIEL CARROLL,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
HORIZON BANK,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Indiana, South Bend Division.
No. 3:19-CV-1089-JD
Jon E. DeGuilio,
Chief Judge.
O R D E R
Daniel Carroll worked as the senior commercial credit officer at Horizon Bank. In
May 2017 he advocated for a pay increase for a female subordinate. He later
recommended her for a promotion along with two male employees; he told bank
executives that they would need to increase her pay postpromotion because the men
earned more than she. In the months that followed, several of Carroll’s subordinates
complained about his managerial and communication shortcomings, and he was
warned about the need for improvement. Soon after, his boss heard him use aggressive
and demeaning language during a conference call and met with him afterward to
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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discuss the unprofessional behavior. He was fired a few months later for ineffective
management and insufficient commitment to improve.
Carroll sued Horizon alleging that he was fired in retaliation for recommending
a pay increase for his female subordinate. The district judge entered summary judgment
for Horizon, holding that Carroll failed to present evidence of a causal link between his
advocacy for pay equity and the bank’s decision to fire him. We agree and affirm.
I. Background
Carroll began working as a loan officer at Horizon Bank in 2001. He left in 2011
for a job at LaPorte Savings Bank and returned in 2016 when Horizon acquired LaPorte.
Six months after the acquisition, he was promoted to vice president and senior
commercial credit officer, reporting directly to Thomas Edwards, Horizon’s president.
In the spring of 2017, Edwards asked Carroll to develop a proposal to restructure
the credit department. Carroll’s reorganization plan included a proposal to promote
three subordinates—Allyson Oesterle-Kleine and two male employees—to newly
created regional manager positions. In May 2017 Carroll asked Horizon to boost
Oesterle-Kleine’s salary. The request was unrelated to the proposed restructuring,
which was still in the planning stages, and Carroll did not mention any equal-pay
concerns. He reasoned that she was productive, would soon be promoted, and a
competitor might poach her. Horizon’s CEO tabled the recommendation because he
wished to find out more about the proposed reorganization.
Carroll submitted his reorganization plan later in May and discussed it in a June
strategy session with Edwards and other Horizon executives. Among other things, he
told them that if the bank promoted Oesterle-Kleine as he recommended, it would need
to raise her salary because she made $30,000 less than each of the two men slated for a
similar promotion. Dennis Kuhn, the bank’s executive vice president (who later
succeeded Edwards as president), attended this meeting.
The executives agreed that the restructuring plan was a good idea, but the parties
dispute whether they approved it there and then. Carroll thought he had a green light
for the reorganization, so he increased Oesterle-Kleine’s responsibilities and told her
that Horizon was reviewing her salary. Horizon maintains that several administrative
steps were necessary before it could finally approve the reorganization, which would
not occur until the spring of the next year. Carroll followed up with the human-

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No. 22-1479 Page 3
resources department several times in the fall to see why the bank had not approved a
salary increase for Oesterle-Kleine. He was told that the CEO still had not approved the
increase.
In the meantime, Oesterle-Kleine’s frustrations grew. She was upset that her
salary did not match the new responsibilities that Carroll had given her. And in her
year-end review, she intimated that she had not received a raise because she is a
woman. Oesterle-Kleine also learned that Carroll had written in her performance
review that she needed time to “adjust her mindset” after her maternity leave—a
comment she found “insulting and unsubstantiated.” She transferred to a different role
at the bank in January 2018 and later turned down the promotion to the managerial
position once Horizon formally approved the reorganization.
In November 2017 several of Carroll’s other subordinates complained about his
managerial shortcomings. They reported that he overworked them, ignored their
messages, and did not understand their roles or appreciate them. Edwards discussed
these complaints with Carroll in late 2017; Cindy Pressinell, the vice president of human
resources, attended this meeting. In February 2018 Pressinell and Kuhn—now the
bank’s president following Edwards’s retirement at the end of 2017—met with Carroll a
second time to discuss the complaints. They urged him to improve his availability and
communication. For example, they suggested that Carroll schedule regular meetings
with one subordinate, which he did. Kuhn and Pressinell also mentioned Oesterle-
Kleine’s complaint about her salary, and they criticized Carroll for informing her of a
promotion and raise that the bank had not yet approved.
The warnings did not resolve the problems. During a conference call in April
2018, Kuhn heard Carroll use “aggressive, unprofessional, and demeaning language”
toward other participants, although Kuhn no longer recalls Carroll’s precise words.
Kuhn says that he met with Carroll after the call to criticize his unprofessional behavior
and then reported the incident to Pressinell. Carroll denies that Kuhn criticized his
professionalism, remembering instead that Kuhn merely disagreed with a position that
Carroll had taken about a loan.
Kuhn fired Carroll on May 30, 2018, a little over a month after the problematic
conference call. He testified in his deposition that he fired Carroll for “ineffective
management” and “a lack of significant commitment … to improve.” Pressinell likewise
told Carroll that Kuhn had fired him because he had not sufficiently improved on the
issues they had raised earlier in the year. In firing Carroll, Kuhn did not follow the

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bank’s discretionary discipline policy, which would have involved several more
warnings.
On June 4 Pressinell wrote three memos to Carroll’s personnel file reflecting the
conversations and meetings leading to the firing. She backdated the memos to
February 28, March 7, and April 13. She says that she crafted these memos by relying on
notes that she had written at the time of the events. One memo says that Carroll had put
the bank at “significant risk” by commenting in a negative way on Oesterle-Kleine’s
maternity leave and promising her a promotion and raise that the bank had not yet
approved. This memo also discusses Carroll’s management and communication
problems with his team. The last memo concerns his use of unprofessional language
during the conference call.
Carroll sued Horizon raising a retaliation claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a). He alleged that the bank fired him for advocating for
pay equity for Oesterle-Kleine. The district judge entered summary judgment for
Horizon, ruling that Carroll failed to present evidence suggesting that Kuhn fired him
because of that advocacy. The judge also rejected Carroll’s contention that Kuhn’s
reason for firing him—poor management—was pretextual.
II. Discussion
Carroll maintains that a reasonable jury could find in his favor. We review a
summary judgment de novo, considering all facts and drawing all reasonable inferences
in favor of Carroll as the nonmoving party. See Rozumalski v. W.F. Baird & Assocs.,
937 F.3d 919, 924 (7th Cir. 2019).
An employer violates Title VII’s antiretaliation provision by taking an adverse
action against an employee “because he has opposed any practice made an unlawful
employment practice by this subchapter.” § 2000e-3(a). To survive summary judgment,
Carroll had to present evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that (1) he
engaged in a protected activity; (2) he suffered an adverse employment action; and (3) a
causal connection exists between the two. See Rozumalski, 937 F.3d at 924. Horizon
concedes the first two elements, so we consider only whether a reasonable jury could
conclude that the bank fired Carroll because of his purported protected activity.
Carroll argues that Kuhn fired him because Kuhn feared a pay-discrimination
suit from Oesterle-Kleine and wanted to silence anyone who had opposed the pay

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disparity. For support he points to the following facts: (1) Kuhn attended the June 2017
meeting at which he had urged the bank to avoid any postpromotion gap in Oesterle-
Kleine’s pay; (2) Pressinell informed Kuhn in February 2018 of Oesterle-Kleine’s salary
complaint; (3) Kuhn fired Carroll about three months after finding out about Oesterle-
Kleine’s complaint; and (4) during this time, Pressinell worried that Carroll’s behavior
toward Oesterle-Kleine put the company at legal risk.
Although these events relate to a possible discriminatory pay gap and preceded
Carroll’s discharge, they do not show, in isolation or together, that Horizon fired
Carroll because he urged the bank to avoid a pay disparity. The first two facts support an
inference that Kuhn was aware of Carroll’s advice to raise Oesterle-Kleine’s pay after
the proposed promotion and that Oesterle-Kleine later complained about her salary.
That knowledge, however, is not enough to show causation. “A valid retaliation claim
requires that the decisionmaker know of the protected activity, but that does not mean
one can infer retaliation from the decisionmaker’s knowledge alone.” Kotaska v. Fed.
Express Corp., 966 F.3d 624, 633 (7th Cir. 2020) (citation omitted). The problem for
Carroll is that no evidence suggests that Kuhn (or anyone at the bank) opposed
increasing Oesterle-Kleine’s pay if Horizon promoted her. To the contrary, bank
executives thought that Carroll’s plan to promote her was a good idea, and nothing
indicates that her pay would have stayed below her male colleagues if they all moved to
similar positions after the restructuring was approved.
The third and fourth facts likewise do not establish a causal link between
Carroll’s discharge and his advocacy for Oesterle-Kleine. The third relates to the timing
of his discharge. He acknowledges that his advice about a pay increase for Oesterle-
Kleine at the June 2017 meeting was far too distant from his termination a year later to
support an inference of causation. But the three-month gap—from February 2018 when
Kuhn became aware of Oesterle-Kleine’s salary complaint to May 2018 when he made
the decision to fire Carroll—is also too long. For a jury to draw an inference of causation
from suspicious timing alone, the adverse action must come days, not months, after the
protected activity. See Igasaki v. Ill. Dep’t of Fin. & Pro. Regul., 988 F.3d 948, 959 (7th Cir.
2021).
Carroll has offered little else to support causation. His only remaining evidence
is the language in Pressinell’s memo warning that his behavior toward Oesterle-Kleine
had exposed the company to legal risk. But the memo did not criticize Carroll for
urging Horizon to erase a pay disparity. Rather, it faulted him for making what
Oesterle-Kleine believed was an insulting comment about her maternity leave and for

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telling her that Horizon planned to promote her and raise her pay when it had not yet
approved either action. Carroll’s evidence thus fails to establish that Horizon fired him
because he opposed a possible discriminatory pay gap.
Carroll also argues that a jury could infer retaliation because Kuhn’s proffered
reason for firing him—ineffective management—was pretextual. To show pretext,
Carroll needs evidence from which a jury could infer that Kuhn was lying, see Robertson
v. Dep't of Health Servs., 949 F.3d 371, 378 (7th Cir. 2020), or that his reason was too
implausible or inconsistent for a jury to find that he sincerely believed it, see Marnocha v.
St. Vincent Hosp. & Health Care Ctr., Inc., 986 F.3d 711, 721 (7th Cir. 2021). Carroll admits
that his subordinates complained about his management and that Kuhn discussed the
complaints with him. Nonetheless, Carroll insists that Kuhn lied about firing him
because of these managerial shortcomings. He argues that if Kuhn cared about the
complaints, he would have met with him sooner, investigated whether he took steps to
improve, and followed Horizon’s discipline policy. Two additional facts, Carroll
continues, help to show that Kuhn’s reason was pretextual: he received a satisfactory
performance review the year before his discharge and Pressinell drafted the memos
describing his performance problems only after he was fired.
These arguments are unavailing. To start, the timing and manner of Kuhn’s
response to the complaints from Carroll’s subordinates do not suggest that he did not
take the complaints seriously. First, there was no delay. It’s undisputed that Kuhn was
on medical leave when the complaints arrived and did not become Carroll’s immediate
supervisor until he succeeded Edwards as president in early 2018. Edwards and
Pressinell met with Carroll toward the end of 2017 to discuss the complaints; Kuhn and
Pressinell followed up in February 2018.
Second, not long after Kuhn warned Carroll to improve his communication with
his subordinates, Kuhn heard Carroll make demeaning and unprofessional remarks on
a conference call. So even without a full-fledged investigation into whether Carroll had
improved after the earlier complaints, Kuhn had firsthand knowledge that Carroll had
not improved. Finally, Kuhn’s decision to fire Carroll without written warnings
comported with Horizon’s disciplinary policy. Progressive warnings were
discretionary; the policy empowered Kuhn to “administer discipline in any manner”
that he saw fit. See Hague v. Thompson Distrib. Co., 436 F.3d 816, 828 (7th Cir. 2006)
(explaining that an employer’s failure to follow its discretionary discipline policy is not
evidence of pretext).

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Nor does Carroll’s satisfactory performance review for 2017 suggest that Kuhn’s
reasons for discharging him the following year later were disingenuous. After
considering what had transpired since Carroll’s previous review—especially the two
warnings a few months apart about his managerial and communication problems and
his unprofessional language on the conference call—Kuhn concluded that he had not
improved. See Igasaki, 988 F.3d at 959 (explaining that past positive performance
reviews are largely irrelevant because what matters is the employee’s performance at
the time of termination); Zayas v. Rockford Mem’l Hosp., 740 F.3d 1154, 1158 (7th Cir.
2014) (explaining that the plaintiff must meet the employer’s legitimate expectations
around the time of firing).
That leaves Pressinell’s memos, which also fail to establish pretext. Carroll
argues that the backdating shows that Horizon concocted concerns about his
managerial deficiencies. But nothing contradicts Pressinell’s testimony that she based
the memos on her contemporaneous notes. In fact, the record corroborates the memos:
Kuhn and Pressinell discussed the complaints with Carroll, told him to improve, and
Kuhn again met with Carroll after the problem phone call.
Carroll insists that the memos describe events that never happened—i.e., a
second meeting with Pressinell and a meeting in which Kuhn criticized his lack of
professionalism on the conference call. The memos, however, stated that Pressinell
spoke to Carroll a second time in 2018, not that the two met a second time. As for the
meeting with Kuhn about the phone call, the fact that Carroll does not recall Kuhn
criticizing his professionalism does not mean that Kuhn lied about believing that
Carroll had used inappropriate language during the call and otherwise poorly managed
his subordinates. See Bagwe v. Sedgwick Claims Mgmt. Servs., Inc., 811 F.3d 866, 882 (7th
Cir. 2016) (explaining that if an employer provides a consistent rationale for a firing,
“differing recollections” over conversations “do not raise a reasonable inference of
discrimination” (quotation marks omitted)). A reasonable jury thus could not conclude
that Kuhn’s reasons for firing Carroll were pretextual.
AFFIRMED

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